Walter Finch
A SPANISH police officer and his two children have been sentenced for laundering drug money and protecting narco groups operating in Andalucia.
The father, a Guardia Civil sergeant, has been convicted of being a member of the narco-trafficking group in the Cadiz Court in Algeciras.
Identified as Bernardo A, he was assigned to the customs office of the Port of Algeciras, Spain’s primary gateway for cocaine into Europe.
In this port alone, eight tonnes of cocaine were seized in February this year, while a record-breaking nine were confiscated in August 2023.
The officer has been handed a six-year prison sentence for money laundering and one year for belonging to a criminal group. Additionally, he faces a hefty fine of €4.5 million.
His children, María del Mar A and Juan Francisco A, were each sentenced to two years and five months in prison for money laundering, plus eight months for belonging to a criminal group.
Both were acting as collaborators to the money laundering scheme, and each received a similar €4.5 million.
Between them, they enjoyed a life of luxury, including luxury holidays and owned seventeen properties worth €606,000 – which they could not reasonably afford on just their stated incomes.
A series of private loans and third-party investments – amounting to around €997,000 – was used to hide the transactions.
Originally from Malaga and later stationed in Ciudad Real, Bernardo A’s criminal activities extended to the narco-infested Campo de Gibraltar.
He employed a sophisticated network of twelve companies and four temporary business unions, which were used to make public tenders – but instead laundered money from drug trafficking.
The court dismissed the defence’s argument that the children were unwitting accomplices, stating that they were fully aware of the irregular activities and had facilitated the money laundering scheme.
While the conviction has been celebrated, Ana Isabel Cerezo, a director at the Andalucian Institute of Criminology, said that the success of counter narcotics police in Algeciras means that the trafficking gangs are increasingly moving their operations to Marbella.
She told attendees how an ‘intensive and exhaustive’ ramping up of surveillance in and around Algeciras is pushing mafia activity towards the Costa del Sol.
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